By the late 80s, Jan Kounen upsets the habits and customs of French cinema by directing documentaries, music videos and mainly short films with crazy visual inventiveness. Among the most famous, lets mention Gisèle Kérozène, Vibroboy or The Last Red Riding Hood. In 1996, he tries his hand at feature-length with Dobermann, an abrasive psychotronic delirium, with the help of the Belucci-Cassel couple, years before Gaspar Noe's Irreversible, showing his intention of giving up pocket-size cinema to explore new grounds. Adventure calls: Jan Kounen goes to Mexico and Peru, immerses himself in the Shaman culture and gets from it his inspiration for Renegade, for which he gives the title role to his friend Vincent Cassel. A spiritual western that divides audiences... Following the steps of an Alain Cavalier, this enemy of the doxas of French cinema (notably the blind belief in the virtues of realism and the sacrosanct "natural") directs more and more intimate projects, with less commercial appeal, counting on the audience's ability to get enchanted. Among these, Darshan, a dazzling documentary about a Hindu saint, whose beauty is reminiscent of Ron Fricke (Baraka). As a proof that he hates predictable paths, he comes back in 2007 to direct 99 Francs, adaptation of Frédéric Beigbeder's best seller, far away from the product that catalogues all the quirks of the image kingdom (top models, chic ideas, phony situations), a film that looks like its author, referring to his past as an advertisement director and denting the image of Jean Dujardin. After taking part in the 8 project where he militates to improve maternal health care in the world, he directs Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky about the passionate affair between the dressmaker and the Russian composer, highlighting Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen and just finished filming for TV the adaptation of Flight of the Storks (from the book by Jean-Christophe Grangé). In these days of extreme standardization, it is important to protect unpredictable filmmakers such as Kounen.
